


Night Time Routine

by olivemartini



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4830380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's become a pattern, for both of them to go to their respective bedrooms, lying awake for hours before falling asleep.  They call it sleeping, but it's the loosest definition, because both of them toss and turn for a few hours, and when they wake up around 3 A.M. they feel even more tired than they did before.  They'll listen for each other, Cas sliding out of bed and straining to hear if Dean is up and awake, while Dean is sitting at the edge of his bed, head in his hands, still stuck in the nightmare he can never truly wake up from.  Neither wants to be the one to admit defeat, but eventually, the darkness and the demons catch up to them, and Cas decides that he simply can't take it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Time Routine

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Katie if she reads this.

They don't talk about it.

Not anymore.

It's become a pattern, for both of them to go to their respective bedrooms, lying awake for hours before falling asleep.  They call it sleeping, but it's the loosest definition, because both of them toss and turn for a few hours, and when they wake up around 3 A.M. they feel even more tired than they did before.  They'll listen for each other, Cas sliding out of bed and straining to hear if Dean is up and awake, while Dean is sitting at the edge of his bed, head in his hands, still stuck in the nightmare he can never truly wake up from.  Neither wants to be the one to admit defeat, but eventually, the darkness and the demons catch up to them, and Cas decides that he simply can't take it anymore. 

(It's always around 3:30 when they fall into each other's arms, which is fitting, considering how it's the hour of demons.)

 

They never turn on the light.

The darkness is sometimes scary, because after so many years and so many horrible things, Cas and Dean both know that it's completely plausible for something to be lurking in the shadows.  But they both know if they could see each other clearly, that would make it real, and it might scare them both away.

So it's in the dark that Cas will walk down the long bunker hallway, and knock gently on the door to Dean's room.  When he pushes the door open, it'll throw a long shadow onto Dean's bed, and Dean will just be able to make out Cas' silhouette standing in the doorway.  It's in the darkness that Cas crosses the room and pulls the cover back, wondering if tonight will be the night that Dean will say something.  (He hopes it will be something along the lines of _stay here with me, all night, we can fall asleep together and maybe that will stop the nightmares from coming,_ but Cas is terrified that it will be more like, _I need some sleep, Cas.  Just not tonight, okay?_ The fear is enough to make him grateful for the silence.)

It is in the darkness that they lay, their thoughts stuck on a never ending loop, Dean wondering if it would be alright to pull Cas closer, and Cas hoping with all his heart he will.  But that never happens right away.

Not until the nightmares come again.

 

 

Neither of them know why the other does it.

They would rather not find out, for fear that the answer won't match up with their own reasons.

Cas wants to be able to stay in his own bedroom more than anything, but he can never truly sleep until he's with Dean.  He doesn't feel safe until he can hear Dean breathing beside him, can't feel happy until their arms and legs are brushing.  He thinks (incorrectly) that Dean never says anything because these few hours they spend together are a burden, that he is a few scraps of patience short from being turned away. He loves the moments at night where Dean reaches out to him in his sleep and pulls him close, but dreads the inevitable apologies in the morning, like for some reason that had been the wrong thing to do. 

Dean always waits for Cas to show up at the door.  There's a weight lifting from his shoulders, a sort of relief he's never felt before, and it only grows as the other man crawls into bed.  It's impossible to forget, at these times, that Cas used to be an angel, that he used to fly through the heavens, and that now he is reduced to crawling into bed with a man that must have been damned before he even understood what the word meant.  Sometimes, in these moments, he wonders if Cas resents it, if he wishes he would have chosen differently.  Dean is terrified the answer if yes.  Dean also knows that he loves Cas, in a way that a measly little human, especially a male human, should never feel about their best friend who used to be an angel of the Lord.  But he also knows that he can't stop the ache in his chest until Cas is beside him, close enough to touch, and Dean is finally able to whisper the things he never has the courage to say to his face.

 

They never talk.

The words are clawing up their throat, at the tip of their tongues, but they grind their teeth and refuse to speak, no matter how badly it hurts. 

 _Please don't make me leave,_ Cas is begging.  _I don't understand this, what this feeling is, and it scares me, but I also know feeling this for you is the most beautiful, wonderful, important thing I've ever done.  I like it when you hold me, and I love it when I get to hold you, when you look at me like I can glue all the pieces of you back together, even though I never thought there was anything that needed fixing.  I wish we would have met differently, and that I was always a human and you were just a regular man, who worked in that auto repair shop like you always wanted, and we could have fallen in love and gotten married and gone to sleep together every night all our lives.  But if that had happened, we wouldn't be the same people, would we?  So maybe I should just take these small moments, these few hours of convincing myself there's a chance you might feel the same way, and be happy._

 _Stay with me,_ Dean thinks.  He wants to say the words, but he's too scared of admitting this, of watching someone else he cares about leave him.  _Stay with me for the rest of my life, whether I die tomorrow or a hundred years from now.  Don't leave this bed, just let me hold you, let me make up for everything I've ever done.  And I'm so sorry for everything, every time I got you hurt, every time I told you to leave, every bit of danger and heart ache I put you through.  I'm so sorry that you fell for me, for a man that isn't worthy to have an Angel of the Lord to watch over him.  But I love the way it feels to have you in my arms.  I just wish I was brave enough to tell you._

 _I love you,_ they are screaming it to each other, silently.  _I love you._

 

They do not wake up together.

They are both worried of the consequences. 

Sometimes it's Cas who is up first, waking up in Dean's arms.  He let's himself wait a little longer, but when he hears Sam go out for his run, he slides out of bed and goes back to his own room.  He pauses at the doorway, watching Dean, seeing how peaceful he looks, before slipping off to his own room.  When Dean wakes up, he wonders if it was a dream.

Other times it's Dean who wakes up first.  He's filled with panic, seeing Cas in his arms, and he's absurdly guilty, like he took advantage of his friend by holding him while he slept.  So he sneaks away, leaving Cas to wake up on his own.  Cas doesn't like those days.  These are the days he feels like Dean doesn't want him there.  Cas did, after all, drive the man away from him own room.  He thinks about stopping this nightly ritual, but by then, he couldn't even if he had wanted to.

When their eyes meet over their morning coffee, but are filled with hurt, and regret, and all the words they didn't say to each other the night before.

 _I'm sorry,_ they say.

_I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @alwaysscripturient


End file.
